Obamacare enrollment: An indictment, not a victory

March 31. 2014 4:11PMThe Obama administration boasts that 6 million people had signed up for health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. The Los Angeles Times reported that about 2 million of those people previously lacked insurance and that about 4.5 million people have signed up for Medicaid under Obamacare. About 3 million young adults were added to their parents’ insurance. What do the numbers mean?

Even if all of the Obamacare estimates are accurate, it would mean that only 9.5 million previously uninsured Americans — about 20 percent of America’s 47 million uninsured — have gained coverage through Obamacare six months after it took effect. That assumes that every Medicaid and young adult enrollee was uninsured.

This is under a legal regime in which the uninsured are mandated by law to obtain health insurance or pay a fine. Even under threat of financial penalty, not even a quarter of the uninsured thought signing up for Obamacare was a good move. That is an indictment, not a triumph.